


Shadows and Demons

by LaryssaD17



Series: Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted if the Father of Understanding Guides Us [2]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dark Past, Depressed Arno, F/M, Fluff and Angst, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I don't know what the fuck I did, I need to name this ship or something, Jacob is kind of rude, Mentions of Peter Pan because of his shadow, Modern Assassins (Assassin's Creed), Nightmares, Sharing a Bed, Survivor Guilt, badass evie, mentions of Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23429395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaryssaD17/pseuds/LaryssaD17
Summary: Nightmares, shadows and demons run inside his head since that day, but she will always be there for him.
Relationships: Arno Dorian & Evie Frye, Arno Dorian/Evie Frye
Series: Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted if the Father of Understanding Guides Us [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1685434
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Shadows and Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Assassin's Creed, in some way, has hit me like a truck and that's why I made this. English is not my first language, so this may have errors.

The nightmare was simple but terrible. Plain has that. 

He saw her again. 

The blood all around her, the sobs she let out, the trembling hand she extended to him. Her carrot hair scatter on the floor, her light eyes closed after giving her last breath without knowing it. 

He felt so hopeless. His heart ached, it broke in thousands of pieces, stopped beating. 

He couldn’t get to her until she was lifeless in a bath of her own blood. He killed those bastards without thinking it, but then, when he took her in his arms, he felt it all again.  
The pain, the tears, the hole in his heart, the screams that wanted to get out of his throat. 

Arno wakes up with his heart beating furiously in his rib-cage, his breathing too accelerated to be normal, looking at every direction to check if he was in his room and not in that dark alley where he lost his love forever. 

When he confirmed he was just surrounded by his room’s darkness and silence, his breathing slowly comes back to normal and his heart stops beating like he was having a heart attack. He swallows hard and throws his soft brown hair back, so it doesn’t touch his forehead and makes him feel more suffocated of what he already feels. His eyes close for a quick moment, but when the slight image of her dying appears again, he opens them and realizes that he is not going to sleep for the rest of the night.  
At least not on his own. 

Arno hates nightmares. 

It just reminds him of how weak he is and why he left France, but sometimes they just came, like a shadow who decides to attack when the least you except it, like a demon who appears and stays for a while to remind you of your own failures. He moved from Paris to London because he wanted to forget the guilt and pain, but he wasn’t Peter Pan to get rid of his shadow. 

So, he was learning to leave with it, slowly…painfully. 

And it was killing him slowly…painfully. 

He stays sited in bed thinking. He feels tired and sad and wants to cry but stays silent because he doesn’t have the right to when she died because of him in the first place. So, he stays there, without moving, knowing pretty well that he is not going to sleep until the morning. 

The idea of going to the kitchen and steal one of Jacob’s beers is tempting, but he doesn’t want to get drunk. He’s tired of getting drunk and crying to sleep. He’s tired of everything in general. Arno rubs his face with too much rudeness and feels like a decade old. Maybe if he reads one of Evie’s books, he’ll fall sleep in no time. 

Evie’s books.

Evie.

An idea appears in his mind. Is kind of a dangerous idea and if Jacob discovers it, he would be dead by morning, but it would not be the first time either. 

Evie and he were something like friends, but he’s not sure because they never have talk of it. He just knows that when he was transferred from the French Brotherhood to the English, she was the first one to welcome him and the only one to treat him like a human being and fellow brother (Jacob was rude to him and Henry was nice, but he still has his doubts and Arno didn’t blame him). She was instructed to show his around, live in the same flat (with Jacob and her apparently ex-boyfriend) and sometimes they were partners, so it was safe to say that they are close…as close as two persons that live together but know very little of the other can be. He just knows that they have live that kind of experiences that makes people come closer and trust each other, even when Jacob doesn’t like it and Henry acts indifferently. 

Arno gets out of bed and after putting a shirt and a pair of stinky socks on he takes his pillow and blanket and exits the room silently. The flat is quiet, which means that Jacob is out parting or is sleep and drunk somewhere and Arno doesn’t care. He walks slowly until he stops in front of Evie’s door. 

He swallows hard because he’s kind of scared. Evie is a good person, he likes her, like a person, partner, like a fellow assassin, and he likes their relationship (whatever it is) and he doesn’t want to fuck it up because she’s probably the only person in all London and England that he can trust. So, he’s not sure if asking for that tiny favor he has in mind is a really good idea. Like, is not the first time he asks her something like this (the first time he was really sad and drunk, and she stayed for pity or at least that’s what he thinks) but this time he’s not drunk, he’s just tired and in need of sleep. So, maybe asking was going to be like crossing a line that he certainly didn’t want to cross because then he’ll be alone again. 

And he couldn’t afford to lose Evie. 

Before he knows it, he’s knocking on her door and when she appears in front of him with one eye more open than the other, her hair loose and messy and pajama shorts, he’s certain that he’s not going back. 

She looks at him confused because, apparently, she was excepting someone else. 

“Arno? Something happened?”, her voice is sleepy and tired, but her accent is what makes his feel like he’s a hormonal teen again. It makes him feel weird, but good at the same time and is hell of confusing. 

“No”, he answers and stays in silence admiring the view. He has never seen Evie all messy and sleepy or in shorts. They’ve lived almost for a year together and she was always quiet, serious and elegant. He liked how she looked, and he let that sink in his mind. “I was just-“

“Can’t sleep?” she interrupts him with a soft voice, almost empathic and he doesn’t know how she knows, but he’s grateful he doesn’t have to explain it. 

“No, I can't”

They stare at each other for a while and the silences explains it all. 

“Come”, she says opening the door and moving so he can enter. 

He does, without a second warning. 

Her room in dark, except for the moon light that slithers between her curtains. Arno stops in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do. Evie closes the door and walks to the bed like nothing happened. 

“Lay down. I don’t bite”, he smirks at that, but she doesn’t see it. 

She lays on the bed, covers herself with blankets and stays on her left side, like he’s not there at all. He decides to obey and goes to the other side of the bed and lays down, but on his back, facing the ceiling while the blanket covers his chest.

“Sleep”, she says after a few minutes in silence. She’s not seeing him and still knows he can’t sleep, “Nobody is going to hurt you in here”

He has never told her of what his nightmares show him in the dark. He hasn’t told her how his demons look like or how ugly his shadow is. But still her words were soft and made him feel like here, with her, nothing could hurt him again. No guilt, no pain, no tears, no suffering. He felt like if was just the two of them sharing a bed in the middle of the night. He felt safe, for the first time in years. 

“Evie”, he said, and she rolls over to her back, but doesn’t answer, “Are we friends?” He feels stupid asking that, but he’s afraid of losing her like he lost everything else in his life.

“Yes”, she answers after a couple of seconds, “If that’s what you want”. 

Hell, yeah, he wanted that. Evie was the only person who was nice to him. The others in the Brotherhood saw him like he was a depressed French freak. She was different. She was patient with him and in some way, she understood him. 

“I’d like that”, he says, but he doesn’t move to see her reaction and neither her. 

“Let’s sleep. I have a mission in the morning”, he nods, even if she can’t see him because she’s rolling on her side again. 

When he looks, her face is close to his arm and a smile is in his lips. 

That night Arno learned a few things. That Evie looks beautiful disheveled, that sleeping beside her means no nightmares, that sober Jacob is worst that drunk Jacob and that he wasn’t going to lose her. 

He wasn’t going to repeat that mistake. 

Not with Evie.


End file.
